windows 8

For the past 23 years, the Start menu has been the staple interface of the Windows operating system. When Windows 8 removed updated the start menu to be full-screen, many users balked at the change. But is any functionality really lost? This post explains how to regain common and not-so-common functions of the legacy Start menu.

If you use Windows 8 on a typical desktop computer (with a keyboard and mouse), you may not like getting whisked over to a full-screen tablet interface just because you opened an email attachment or picture file. Here’s how to stop that and stay on the desktop.

Watch a Power User for a while, and you’ll soon notice that they rarely take their hands off the keyboard. Without lifting a wrist to touch a mouse, trackpad, or touch screen, these super users move seamlessly between tasks, switch programs, and navigate complex and large documents.

It’s time to have a frank discussion busting the myths of Windows 8. If you receive nothing else from this, I want you to understand that Windows 8 does not take anything away from you. Anyone claiming otherwise is either trying to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), quite likely for profit, or is simply unaware of the truth.

Pinned Sites, first introduced in Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 9, could be described as super-favorites. Windows 8 brought us the ability to pin sites to our Start screen, and this functionality is being enhanced in Windows 8.1.

I’ve shown you how to make SkyDrive the storage location for your Windows libraries, as well as sync your desktop and other shell folders to SkyDrive and your other PCs. But what if you have files that need to stay on another drive, or that can’t be moved to the SkyDrive folder?

If you’ve been following me here or on twitter, you know I’m a huge proponent of SkyDrive, the online storage space service from Microsoft. SkyDrive makes sharing files a breeze – whether it privately among your private personal computers and devices, discreetly with individuals and colleagues, or publically with the world. SkyDrive is a great addition to (or starting point for) backing up your personal files and documents, safely off-site and yes, in the cloud.

I’ve written before about the non-intuitive nature of visual effects in recent versions of Windows, where offloading the desktop rendering duties to the graphics card can result in considerable performance improvements. While this is true for nearly any modern PC, including those with ‘integrated’ graphics cards, there are still steps one may take to enhance performance.

The OneNote radial menu provides finger-friendly access to common commands. When you’re familiar with the layout of the menu, you can use it without opening it first: just swipe in the direction of the command you want to select.

Pinning submenu commands to the toolbar not only provides more direct access, but also serves as a status indicator to a state that may otherwise be hidden. For example, now I can tell at a glance the status of my Excel workbook calculations, and change it if necessary before I make an edit that would trigger a lengthy calculation.

Gmail’s use of labels instead of folders typically means that using the service with most mail clients can be tricky. If you know how Gmail archives instead of deletes messages though, you can more easily triage and archive mail from Windows 8.

Your Start screen tiles can link deeper into your apps, providing a one-touch shortcut to the content you care about most. Whether it’s people, email, news, or content from a variety of other apps, you can deep pin it on your Start screen easily.

Did you know that you can add your own commands to the toolbar at the top of Microsoft Office programs? This also applies to several apps in Windows 7, and has even been expanded to the File Explorer in Windows 8!